This morning, I had to think about how to hold a knife

Last Thursday, I left home on my bicycle. I was heading to a training I had been looking forward to for weeks. Two hundred meters from my front door, it hit me. A car that is.

I had seen him approaching from the opposite side of the roundabout, scanning the situation. I thought he had seen me too. I also judged his speed to be slow enough that it posed no danger. So I continued across the exit road.

The next moment, I saw his car right next to me as he exited the roundabout. In one millisecond, I knew exactly what was about to happen. No panic. Just a clear, almost calm realization: this is going terribly wrong. This is going to hurt. And I was right.

The car struck my rear wheel, spinning me around. I landed on the tarmac, leaning on my forearms, my bicycle somewhere out of sight. Oddly enough, I wasn’t surprised; my mind had already caught up. Lying there, I mostly felt annoyed. Not at the driver, but at the situation. The training day I had looked forward to was suddenly out of reach.

The driver stopped immediately. He was shaken and apologetic. He confessed that he hadn’t even seen me. The first thing he noticed was the sound of the crash. And then there I was on the ground. He felt terrible.

I didn’t blame him. It could have happened to anybody, including me. I might have been distracted by the low morning sun and missed a cyclist from the other direction. Kind strangers stopped to check on me. Meanwhile, he called the emergency number for an ambulance.

Then I glanced at my right wrist and saw a bend that clearly did not belong.

The ambulance and the police arrived quickly. In the Netherlands, accidents involving motorists and cyclists are taken very seriously. Paramedics tended to my wrist while police took statements. Their kindness and professionalism helped me relax. No other injuries, fortunately. I called my wife. She hurried over to pick me up.

The fracture is complicated, the doctor told me at the hospital. They took X-rays and a CT scan for a detailed 3D view. An operation couldn’t be scheduled the same day, so they fixed my right underarm in a cast from elbow to hand. I could move my fingers slightly, but couldn’t grip, pinch, or apply pressure. When I went to the toilet and discovered I could not unzip my trousers with my right hand, I immediately saw I would face new challenges.

When life changes suddenly, you really have two options. You can hold on to what was and feel frustrated, or you can adapt and look for a new way forward. I have learned that how you respond to setbacks matters more than the setback itself. When the plan changes, it helps to change with it. That is personal agility in action.

I could have been angry with the driver, or spent the week feeling sorry for myself. Instead, after leaving the hospital, I sent him a message to let him know how I was doing. The next day, he came over with a box of chocolates. He offered to help with groceries, take my bicycle to the repair shop, and help with anything else I needed. That kind offer meant a lot to me. We worked through the insurance paperwork together. Holding a pen in my right hand and pressing hard enough to write was simply not possible. My handwriting is usually difficult to read, even for me, but now my signature is almost unrecognizable.

In the days after the accident, something else began to happen, something quieter, but perhaps more interesting. I started to notice things I had long taken for granted.

One morning, I wanted to cut some ginger for tea. I picked up the knife with my left hand and paused, unsure how to begin. I had to think through a movement I had done thousands of times without noticing. How do I hold this? Where does the knife go? Which way do I move my hand? I moved the knife with my left hand, slowly and carefully, almost like a child learning something for the first time.

Other similar moments from the past week:

• Brushing my teeth with my left hand feels as if I am borrowing someone else’s arm.
• Taking out my contact lenses needs two hands working together in a sequence I had never really thought about. That routine no longer works.
• Getting dressed and undressed is difficult, especially when it comes to putting on socks. Doing that with one hand is a real challenge.
• Tearing open a package or opening a screw-cap bottle suddenly becomes a struggle.
• Even spreading butter on toast is not as simple as it used to be.

Each of these moments brought a small jolt of recognition. I realized I had been doing these things automatically, without any awareness.

There is a concept in learning called unconscious competence. It describes the stage where you have mastered something so completely that you no longer know you are doing it. You just do it. Effortlessly. Most of daily life runs on unconscious competence. We get dressed, prepare food, and move around our homes on autopilot.

A broken wrist does not just limit your movement; it reveals how much you rely on that autopilot. I found myself feeling grateful for all the simple things I had taken for granted. The ability to write, to cook, to move freely at home, to do all the ordinary things that fill a day. They are not ordinary at all. I had simply forgotten.

My wrist will heal. The autopilot will come back, probably before I want it to. That’s just how it works. We are built to stop noticing. But maybe, next time you write, you’ll notice the pen in your hand. I know I will.